Closing schools for a year was a mistake admits Antony Fauci

Anthony Fauci, who became the face of the fight against Covid-19, has made a dramatic U-turn over a policy that saw millions of children forced into remote learning.

Dr Anthony Fauci testifies before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic earlier this month. Picture: Getty Images via AFP.

Anthony Fauci, the former director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has admitted that it was a mistake to close schools for more than a year during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Dr Fauci, who was a top adviser to two presidential administrations during crisis, made the admission during an interview with CBS TV, in a dramatic U-turn over the draconian policy that forced millions of children into remote learning.

During the interview, aired to publicise his new memoir: On Call: A Doctor’s Journey in Public Service, Dr Fauci argued the initial decision to close classrooms was correct.

“Keeping it for a year was not a good idea,” he said.

“So, that was a mistake in retrospect?” host Tony Dokoupil asked. “We will not repeat it?”

“Absolutely, yeah,” Dr Fauci responded.

Dr Fauci, 83, has previously stood by the recommendation that forced children out of classrooms and into learning from home, and has even claimed there should have been “much, much more stringent restrictions” in the early stages of the pandemic.

In the northern summer of 2020, when some US schools were considering reopening, Dr Fauci advised against the move, warning there might be some areas were the level of the virus was so high it “would not be prudent” to allow children back into school. Asked on PBS that same month whether “many months of virtual learning” would be the norm, he answered, “In some places, that may be the case,” The New York Post reports.

In January 2021, a CDC study showed “little evidence that schools have contributed meaningfully to increased community transmission’’ but schools remained closed until later that year.

However Dr Fauci refused to admit that the school closures had been an error, telling the ABC in 2022:. “I don’t want to use the word ‘mistake.’”

In his interview with CBS Dr Fauci said schools should have been shut down “immediately” then reopened “as quickly and safely as you can.”

However he refused to admit that children’s education had suffered due to remote learning.

“One clear area seems to be the school closures, which did enormous harm to kids on multiple levels and didn’t seem to save lives,” Doukoupil said. “And I wonder, can we say today that that is a mistake?”

“No,” Dr Fauci replied.

The New York Post reports that according to US Department of Education statistics released in September 2022, reading scores among nine-year-olds plummeted over the course of the pandemic to their lowest point in 30 years, while maths scores fell for the first time ever in a half-century of tracking.

In testimony at a Congressional hearing this year, Dr Fauci conceded the “six feet apart” rule, the intellectual underpinning of lockdowns, wasn’t based on science or even logic.

“It just sort of appeared,” he said.

“Just an empiric decision that wasn’t based on data or even data that could be accomplished.

“It was felt that transmission was primarily through droplets, not aerosols, which is incorrect because we know now aerosol does play a role,” he said, pointing out that Covid-19 floats in the air, making a mockery of masks, and social distancing.

In a separate interview today (AEST) on MSNBC, Dr Fauci blamed “misinformation related to ideology” for deaths during Covid.

Defending his record and that of other public-health officials, who were accused of “flip-flopping” during the pandemic on issues such as the need to wear face masks and socially distance, he said: “What we needed to do better was to let people understand that we were dealing with a moving target.

“Science is self-correcting.”

As experts learned more about the virus, they were able to change their advice and recommendations, he noted.